


i'll never walk these streets alone (i find us everywhere)

by nirav



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-07
Updated: 2018-08-07
Packaged: 2019-06-23 13:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15607014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nirav/pseuds/nirav
Summary: The DEO building still stands, an unchanged monolith ten blocks from L Corp.  It’s busier than ever, the logo proudly emblazoned over the front doors, covert status abandoned years earlier as aliens became more common.  Kara settles on a bench in front of the building, nose wrinkling at the bustle of suited agents and analysts buzzing around inside. She pulls her glasses away after a long moment and stares through the walls and pillars to the center elevator shaft in the lobby, the last one to go up during the rebuild after the Worldkiller attacks.  Behind the elevator car, dug into the concrete of the shaft walls, is her handprint and signature, surrounded by Alex’s, and J’onn’s, Sam and Ruby and Lena and Lucy and James and Winn.They’re all still there, deep in the heart of the building.





	i'll never walk these streets alone (i find us everywhere)

**Author's Note:**

> spotify dropped [this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMdNOiplpEc) into a playlist the other day and i'm a week post-op and the exact right amount of exhausted to allow it to dropkick me right in the feelings, so basically this is not at all my fault and i refuse to accept any responsibility for it.

 

 _it's only little things: footmarks and fingerprints_  
_a treasure hunt through town_  
_it's full of evidence, our monuments all around_  
_everything's on the move, the paint is wet, the colors all new_  
_but if you look carefully you'll see us shining through_

 

National City has changed.  It’s been years-- decades-- since she’d lived here, since she’d known the name of every firefighter and EMT she crossed paths with, since the DEO’s tower had shared the skyline with Catco’s and L Corp’s skyscrapers, since she’d flown over a memorized pattern of rooftops and intersections on a nightly basis.  The buildings have gotten taller, more than a dozen stretching past the highest point of the penthouse office that had once belonged to Lena Luthor; the architecture has shifted to cleaner lines and sharper corners, brighter colors and brighter lights.

Supergirl hasn’t been based out of National City for nearly half a century.  Kara Danvers has faded away, a moderately successful reporter whose unprecedented access to superheroes and executives carried her byline further than it should have, if never as far as she’d liked, held back by her determination to stay local until she retired abruptly from journalism at a youthful 45.  

Kara returns as Kara, blending seamlessly into the speedwalking crowds on sidewalks she used to know by heart.  Her old apartment building has been converted into open-plan offices and the coffee shop on her block that always somehow burned their scones just the tiniest bit no matter how hard they tried, where the baristas knew Kara’s order by heart and had it ready for her every morning at 7:20, has been torn down and replaced by a grocery store.  

She leans against a signpost outside and stares at the facade of the grocery store, straight through the crowds of people walking by her on their way to work.  She’d been smashed into the sidewalk right here, once, decades ago, her shoulders breaking through concrete and nearly crushing through to the water pipes running underneath it.  The concrete has been pitted and filled in patches since then, varying shades of grey-brown marking years of haphazard repairs. There’s still a spot raising higher than the rest, a lump of extra repair to cover the one pesky crack that had kept spreading up from the base of the concrete after she broke it.  

She watches people stumble over the lump in the sidewalk for long minutes before carrying on, trudging along tiredly even under the bright sunlight.  The shadow of the Catco building falls over her footsteps eventually, and she cranes her head back to take in the balcony that had been Cat’s, then James’, then Cat’s again.  The building still carries the Catco name but half of the floors have been taken over by United Nations offices, brought to National City to balance the increased military presence that the city earned following the Daxamite invasion.  The balcony railings are stuffed with flags, waving listlessly in the weak breeze.

Her walk carries on, to the waterfront and the Supergirl statue that still stands there, still kept clean and shining by municipal habit more than anything else: Supergirl came from National City, but stopped being National City’s alone long ago, decades ago, when Lois Lane passed away and Superman quietly retired to Argo City to live out the rest of his life, when Supergirl stepped up to carry the mantle of the House of El for the both of them and grew from National City’s hero to the world’s hero in his absence.  

Behind the statue is a shining glass building framing Supergirl’s shoulders, an enormous children’s museum funded by L Corp and bearing Julie Freeman’s name, the only remnant of the sacrifice Julia had made.  It had been Sam’s pet project for years, a battle for zoning rights and architectural choices, endowment funding to keep it free to the public and naming rights to keep the L Corp board from slapping the company name all over it.  Kara had stood with Alex in the crowd at the opening, surrounded by James and Ruby and J’onn, watching as Lena had given the speeches and dragged Sam forward for the ribbon cutting.

She circles the museum, shuffling along short-cut grass and trailing her fingers along the glass walls.  It’s grown since Kara left National City, annexes and exterior gardens spiraling out into an entire complex.  Somewhere inside, down quiet corridors that no one but janitors and administrators ever frequent, are framed copies of the original blueprints, the grant proposals Sam wrote, the sketches she’d absently drawn in the margins of a newspaper on a Saturday morning brunch with Kara and Lena and Alex and Ruby, all crowded around the kitchen island in Lena’s apartment with coffee and orange juice.  Her fingerprints are all over the building and the ironclad endowment that no one could ever touch. Aside from Ruby, she always said it was the best thing she ever did.

Her third circuit of the building leaves her facing the shadow of the L Corp tower, still imposing among taller buildings, skewering the cloudy skies behind the museum.  Kara shoves her hands into her jacket pockets and stares up at it, slumping back to lean against the museum walls. Her toes curl in her shoes, itching to push off of the ground and carry her through the sky to the balconies jutting out of the offices that had been Lena’s and Sam’s, familiar spaces high above the city where she’d landed too many times to count.  

She walks instead of flies, following familiar streets and unfamiliar buildings.  Her feet fall softly and slowly on the ground. Too many times, when her head had been full and flying over the city, the altitude and pressure and responsibility of holding a view that no one else could understand, she had walked for hours instead.  Alex had walked with her every time, quiet at her side, hands always shoved into her own pockets and held fast until Kara was ready to speak. Even long after she’d married and moved out of the city center, when she finally retired from fieldwork and kept more reasonable hours, she would come out to walk the city streets in the middle of the night with Kara.  

The fire station where Supergirl always stopped by to sneak freshly baked cookies, halfway between the waterfront and downtown, is an office building now.  Kara keeps her focus on her feet as she carries on past it, the phantom presence of her sister at her side holding her focus instead of the changed landscape around her.  

The DEO building still stands, an unchanged monolith ten blocks from L Corp.  It’s busier than ever, the logo proudly emblazoned over the front doors, covert status abandoned years earlier as aliens became more common.  Kara settles on a bench in front of the building, nose wrinkling at the bustle of suited agents and analysts buzzing around inside. She pulls her glasses away after a long moment and stares through the walls and pillars to the center elevator shaft in the lobby, the last one to go up during the rebuild after the Worldkiller attacks.  Behind the elevator car, dug into the concrete of the shaft walls, is her handprint and signature, surrounded by Alex’s, and J’onn’s, Sam and Ruby and Lena and Lucy and James and Winn.

They’re all still there, deep in the heart of the building.  Kara pushes her glasses back up her nose and sighs quietly, leans back into the bench and tips her head back.

“Thought I might find you here.”

She opens her eyes slowly, smiling even as she does so, and pulls her head back down.

“Winn,” she says quietly.  “How’d you know?”

“I’m from the future, baby,” he says with smirk and a shrug.  His smile is the same, even with a beard covering his cheeks and an unfamiliar authority in his straighter posture.  He pulls his hands out from his pockets as he sits down and wraps an arm around her shoulders, head tilting down atop hers on his shoulder.  “It’s all a matter of record, the day Supergirl left earth.”

“It’s time.”  She pulls her glasses off again and looks back to the handprints inside the building.  “I just have one more stop.”

“Are you sure you’re up for it?”  His hand moves up and down her arm, familiar and comforting in spite of the unfamiliar callouses covering his palms.

“Yeah.” She pulls in a deep breath and pushes up to her feet.  “Can you--”

“Obviously,” he says sharply, grinning as he bounces up to his feet, boyish and youthful and so much younger than everyone else.  He pops an elbow out for her to hook a hand through and they set off walking, moving slowly through the city and out towards the sprawling suburbs.

It takes the better part of the afternoon, moving at an easy human pace, taking their time to walk past Alex’s old apartment building, Lena’s townhouse, the community center James had started and run.  Kara’s pace slows to a crawl as they draw closer and closer, nearly to a halt in front of a familiar gate and low whitewashed wall overgrown with vibrant wildflowers.

“Are you sure you’re up for this?” Winn asks again, hand wrapped tightly around hers.  

“It’s time,” Kara says, nodding firmly even as her voice shakes.  She sucks in a deep breath and readjusts her grip on his hand and steps through the gate into the cemetery.  

It’s well kept and quiet, clean markers slicing through the landscape, dotted with flowers placed carefully in the grass at different markers.  They follow the path through it, familiar and winding, to a quiet corner shaded under an enormous oak tree and the collection of granite markers under it.  Winn pulls his hand free and kisses her cheek softly and backs away, moving back to a bench along the path and leaving her to the gravestones that make up the family she’d made on this planet.

She works her way through them methodically, offering her goodbyes to James, who lived until he was almost ninety; Eliza, who picked the plot after making peace with the shortfalls of her late husband and choosing a new space for her family away from the grave still standing for him in Midvale; Lena, her headstone surrounded by new and fading bouquets of flowers and the cards that the children’s hospital she funded well past her death sent over weekly from patients and families; Lucy, with a ceremonial headstone, added to compliment her space in Arlington and the Lane family plot in Illinois; Sam, taken earlier than any of them could have guessed, the lingering kryptonite in her blood wearing her body down when she was barely 65.  There’s a fresh bouquet of flowers and a sealed letter tucked inside of it sitting in front of her headstone with Ruby’s familiar handwriting, now wobbling with age.

Kara’s sniffling quietly by the time she makes it to Alex.  She pulls her knees up to her chest and rests her chin on them, pulling her glasses off and wiping at her eyes and staring at her sister’s grave.  There’s an identical set of flowers and a letter from Ruby for her as well, and settled between Alex’s headstone and Sam’s are stacks of flowers, some old and some new, all left from the dozens of children they fostered over the years.

“I miss you,” she mumbles.  “So much.” It’s been decades since Alex died, well into her nineties and still cantankerous, still fostering children in the house she and Sam had built, still Kara’s emotional anchor, the last of all of them to pass away and the last tether Kara had to National City. She hasn’t stopped missing her since.  “I’m going to go now. To Argo City. The world doesn’t need me anymore. It needs more of you, and Lena, and Sam and James and Winn. Not more of me.”

She sniffs again, wrinkles her nose against her tears, cranes her head around to catch Winn’s eye and jerk her head towards the headstone.  He settles at her side, hand locked in hers, head tilting onto her shoulder.

“Do you want to know what it’s like in the future?” he asks after a long moment.  

“Tell me,” she says quietly.

“You know the Legion was modeled after you.”  His other hand comes around to wrap around hers as well.  “That never changes. L Corp is still around. Re-established in 2016 and still going strong 750 years later.  Still doing good.”

“Good,” Kara mumbles into his shoulder.    

“Lena’s in all of the history books,” he continues.  “For all of the right reasons. Which I think you already knew.”

“She just wanted to do good,” Kara says, voice hitching in the back of her throat because she spent nearly sixty years with Lena, always in love and always in awe of her, watching her grow old and change the world over and over again, making it a better and safer place.  “And she was so good at it.”

“The children’s museum is gone,” Winn says softly, and he grips her hand tighter when she tenses.  “It was an earthquake. Nothing to be done. We made sure it was rebuilt. It’s not just a museum anymore.  Full-on shelter, school, museum, everything. It’s ten times the size.” He pauses and waits for Kara to let out a slow breath.  “One of the new wings is named after Sam. It only seemed fair.”

“God, she would’ve hated it,” Kara says with a snort.  “Even if she deserved it, after everything.”

“Yeah, that’s what I figured,” he says, nudging her shoulder with his.  

Kara sucks in a slow breath and pauses, breathes, speaks.  “What about Alex?”

He takes an echoing breath and clears his throat, sniffling momentarily before he answers, thick and heavy.  “The research she and Lena were doing,” he says carefully. “Leveraging kryptonian cell regeneration for medical purposes.”

“She was so disappointed she couldn’t figure it out,” Kara mumbles, wiping at her eyes again and leaning on his shoulder, staring at Alex’s headstone.  

“She got so close,” he says.  “Closer than she had any right to.  Progress stalled out after she passed away, but in a few years some enterprising doctoral candidates are going to pick it up again.”

“Does it work?”

“It does,” Winn says softly, proudly.  “It changes just about everything we know about medicine.  Revolutionizes it.”

“Does she get the credit?” Kara asks after a moment.  “She did so much.”

“Girl, please,” he scoffs.  “You think I’d let her go uncredited?”

“Good.”  Kara turns to bury her forehead in his shoulder, holding tight to his arm and pulling in a shaky breath.  “Good.”

“They’re all over history,” Winn says, chin propped atop her head.  “All of you are. Big old messy Danvers-Arias-Luthor-Olsen fingerprints _everywhere_.”

“Our handprints are all still in the DEO,” Kara says, wet and heavy even as she smiles.  “I spent all day walking around, even before you got here. There’s so much of us, everywhere in this city.”

“Just like there’s so much of yours truly, all over the universe in the future,” Winn says, then pauses, frowns, shakes his head. “Not like--”

“Uh huh,” Kara says, poking a hand into his ribs teasingly.  “Sure.”

“You know what I meant,” he says with a grumble.  He pulls his arm free and climbs to his feet with a groan, offers Kara a hand and a smile.  “What do you say, Supergirl? Want to go for a ride in my super cool future spaceship?”

“I think so, time traveler Winn Schott.”  Kara lets herself be pulled up to her feet.  She takes another minute to press a hand to Alex’s headstone, to whisper one more goodbye, before taking his hand again and following him out of the cemetery.

“So you’re ready for your into the west moment?” he says once they’ve made it to an empty stretch of suburban road and he’s summoned some ship or another.  

“Still quoting Tolkien even after all this time?” Kara says with a smile.  

“Some things are timeless, Kara,” he says sharply.  The ship materializes above them and a stairwell drops down to meet them.  He bounds aboard with a huff, muttering about disrespect to the greats, and Kara follows more slowly and makes her way to the cockpit, staring down at the city as it shrinks below them in the ascent.  The skyline’s changed but from on high it looks the same as it always had, full and alive and nearly every inch of it engraved with Alex and Lena and Sam, Winn and James and J’onn, Lucy and Ruby and Kara.  

Kara settles into the seat across from Winn’s and watches as National City becomes clouds and clouds become stars.  She doesn’t close her eyes until they’re deep into space and earth has started to shrink away from sight, and she leans back in the seat with a deep breath, tilting her head back, ready to follow in Kal’s footstep and finish her life in Argo City as just Kara.

She opens her eyes to watch as earth shrinks into the stars, and offers one more silent goodbye to the home she’d chosen for so long.  

“You okay?” Winn says quietly from the pilot’s seat, uncertainty clouding his features for the first time since he’d found her in National City.

“Yeah,” Kara says after a beat.  “I’m okay. It’s time to go.” She wipes at her eyes and watches as the last pinprick of blue and white that is earth shrinks away to nothing.

“Ready?”

“Ready,” Kara says.  “Let’s do this.”

Winn offers her a cocky smile of his own and punches up the speed on the ship and space blurs around them into nothing, rocketing them towards Argo City and the last years of her life, and Kara smiles.

 

 _we're in the air, we're in the water_  
_from the rooftops down to the pier_  
_i'll never walk these streets alone_  
_we're in the air, we're in the water_  
_engraved into waves, invisible ink on the walls_  
_we were here, we were here, we were really here_

 

 


End file.
